


Go Back to Sleep

by reapertownusa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dubious Consent, Humiliation, M/M, Nudity, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:09:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapertownusa/pseuds/reapertownusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After thirty-two years in hell, Dean is deciding what parts of himself he's ready to let go of and clings to the only thing that can ease the transition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Back to Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Dub-con, torture, general dark and disturbing themes/imagery
> 
> Author's Note: Written for the spnraritiesfest exchange for ninurta using her three prompts (because they all fit together too well to pick just one):  
> 1) I looked up at the stars tonight  
> To see your face and to feel your presence now  
> I need you here right now.  
> from Broken Sunday by Saliva   
> 2) "That could have gone better."  
> 3) This SPN music video (and to the song 'Counting Bodies Like Sheep' in general)
> 
> A million, billion thanks to the super awesome greeneyes_fan for jumping in as my emergency beta!

Dean sucked in a sharp breath.

For now, there were lungs in his chest. That was better than the way some days started, not that anything good came with lungs here. They were just something else to take away.

The air was thick and sour, tainted with the bite of sulfur. He breathed out, letting the stale air slip from between his slightly parted lips. His tongue ran over those lips to feel them supple and whole. Only here would he have to check to make sure he still had a tongue and jaw. 

His lashes fluttered, proving that his eyelids were also intact and lashes not singed away. Sometimes it was hard to tell because the view wasn’t much different with his eyes open than it had been with them closed.

Darkness enveloped him, punctuated only by an ethereal glow. The atmosphere was blistering and molten - the fire of souls burning. Even in the light, everything was black, charred and rotten.

Dean had come to redefine comfort.

These days, he found it in Alastair’s smile, a crooked grin toothy and jagged on the demon’s true visage. It was horrifying by any standard he’d had before moving downstairs. Now it was familiar.

Dean could read the subtleties of what had initially been only a hideous, twisted mass of flesh. He knew when Alastair was amused. He knew when that amusement was Alastair laughing at him, and when the demon was laughing with him. To the last slice of bone, he would deny the truth that he found comfort in the latter.

He knew the upturned lips and encouraging nod of Alastair’s approval. The comfort in that eased the tension from his knotted shoulders. He still told himself it was only about avoiding the pain that came with Alastair’s disapproval.

There was comfort in a cold hand gripping the back of his neck just this side of pain. It was in the chance to spend the night curled in the congealing pool of someone else’s blood instead of with the tickle of his own seeping down his sides as he spent another night strung up by meat hooks.

The nights were long in hell, too long and not long enough.

They were a respite from pain, giving only enough relief for there to be something to take away tomorrow. But they were also empty in a way so deep that it gnawed at the remaining bits of Dean’s souls.

No matter how hard he tried to empty his mind, hanging in that chasm, he could only replay in full Technicolor glory all the way’s he’d fucked up. Every wrong choice he’d made, everything he’d ever done laid bare.

He no longer differentiated between night and day, not at Alastair’s side. It was only one more piece that had fallen to the wayside and left him struggling to care.

There was only pain and more or less pain.

Pain wasn’t what it used to be. It wasn’t something to be avoided or feared. It was just there, an inescapable constant.

At first, it had simply been something to survive. Now it was simply a way of life. A lot of what had seared like agony ten years ago no longer registered.

Maybe he’d become numb to it. Maybe he’d come to enjoy it just a little.

As morning tumbled into afternoon, the hot blood that ran down his skin wasn’t his own. The flesh plopping in mounds to the floor wasn’t his either. The blade in his hand was only on loan.

Alastair’s razor.

It was heavier than it looked. The slickness of sweat mingled with the stickiness of drying blood as Dean gripped the handle tight.

He was well acquainted with both sides of the razor. To the millimeter, he knew how deeply the blade could slice into a fresh torso – how deep it could bury itself into his own chest. It might look like a barber’s razor, but it could carve through solid granite without effort. The cuts were slow and ragged only for effect.

Dean clutched the tool like a life raft, the only thing keeping him afloat in shark infested waters. That was exactly what it was. 

Word traveled fast in hell. The pit was full of liars and thieves and not a one of them could keep their mouths shut. The few who tried didn’t last long under persuasion. Everyone was weak at the core.

No one had the guts to say it to his face, but he’d heard the whispers muffled beneath the screams of the damned.

There was no room for a righteous hunter in hell. 

~~~

The floor was coated in ash and hard beneath Dean, leaving his joints aching and his muscles sore. It felt solid and grounding, but the dirt, and even his own flesh, was only what Alastair wanted it to be.

He was what Alastair wanted him to be.

His eyes remained closed, his breath forced even as he pretended to sleep. Alastair’s leg and the chair the demon sat on propped Dean on his side. His arms folded beneath his head to serve as a pillow. It was comfortable.

The contact with Alastair’s leg assured him the demon was at his side and no other would jump him as he rested. The soiled ground was worlds better than being strung up with no point of reference.

Usually, he didn’t have to pretend to sleep. Exhaustion swept him quickly to dreams, or on the rare night that Alastair allowed it, into nothing at all. But tonight, they weren’t alone. Some other demonic son of a bitch had been talking Alastair’s ear off for what seemed like years.

Alastair was losing patience. Dean could feel it in the flex of the demon’s calf muscle and the reverberation Alastair’s tapping sent through the leg of the chair.

Dean tensed in tune with Alastair even though he wasn’t the target of the irritation. If Alastair’s mood went sour, it would come down on Dean soon enough.

“Why do you keep that thing around?” the other demon asked. “He’s served his purpose. We’re finished with him.”

Dean’s shoulders tensed further. There was no death in hell. No escape. He didn’t know what it meant to be discarded here. He didn’t want to know. Every time he declared there could be nothing worse, Alastair proved him wrong.

An icy hand reached down to stroke the skin of Dean’s exposed back, nails like razors running over his bare flesh, slicing just deep enough to summon rivulets of blood.

Alastair knew he was already awake. There was nothing Alastair didn’t know.

Dean rose, arching up into what qualified as petting. He took it as permission to take in the other demon. Only, Dean didn’t care about the other one. As he sat at Alastair’s feet, his gaze instead locked with that of the only demon that mattered. It was a silent plea laced with reluctant curiosity.

Alastair smiled. Approving.

Dean leaned in closer, begging the claws to claim him further. He needed the proof that Alastair wouldn’t turn his back on him, wouldn’t abandon him.

The demon obliged, absently tracing patterns older than humanity into the canvas of Dean’s skin. “Perhaps,” Alastair replied to the demon, though his eyes remained on Dean. “But I’m not finished with him. Not nearly.”

Thirty two years ago, the words would have sickened him to the core. Tonight, they were a relief.

They meant one more night of sleeping whole.

~~~

Dean no longer pretended that he wasn’t Alastair’s bitch. The thing that had spent decades carving him up was now the one thing keeping every other demon in the Pit off his back. He was Alastair’s and off limits unless he pissed the demon off enough to let the others play.

No one down here feared him in his own right, not on their home turf - not yet.

If not for Alastair’s protection, half the demons in the Pit would be in line to keep right on carving into him. He was surrounded by the demons he had sent here and the rest knew what he was. Or rather, what he had been.

This was his world now and forever.

There was no out. There were no more deals to be made. No way to destroy the lingering fragments of his soul even as they rotted away. He could already feel his blood turning black. His soul was cold and he was tired.

He couldn't be a human in hell. Not forever.

It was Alastair or the other demons. It was Alastair’s bed or the meat hooks. Those were his choices and it wouldn't help a damn thing to dream of Sam and apple pies and sitting on the hood of the Impala.

There was only torture or be tortured.

Dean didn't so much hear his steps, or see him from the corner of his eye, as he felt Alastair's presence tug at his soul like a magnet. He tilted his head and risked a glance to gauge Alastair’s mood.

The demon’s expression was a neutral mix – vaguely amused. Dean wasn't totally fucking this up, but it wasn't good enough. He never was.

Dean drove his blade deeper into the soul stretched before him. It was about trying to please Alastair, but also a search for retreat. If he tore deep enough, focused hard enough, he could lose himself in the wet slicing of flesh.

The only thing that truly scared him was that every day he was less afraid. Every day, he was happier to see Alastair. Everyday, he forgot a little more of what he was and he was glad for it.

There was no way out. There was only forgetting.

Someday, maybe soon, he'd be just another black eyed son of a bitch. At least he knew if he ever got to earth there was at least one capable hunter who knew him well enough to take him down. 

As Alastair’s arms encircled him, Dean’s still tender flesh scraped against the roughness of Alastair’s chest. He leaned his head back into the demon’s shoulder.

Dean wasn't sure what he wanted, whether it was to turn and slit Alastair’s throat with the razor, or to beg the demon to fuck him raw enough to make him forget. Whatever he wanted, Alastair always gave him the opposite.

Alastair knew what he needed more than Dean himself did.

With a tilt of his head, Alastair evaluated Dean's work. "You could do better."

Dean’s eyes traced the too-clean cuts. "I know."

"But it's a good start."

The words brought ease and the slice of a blade over his skin was a familiar comfort.

Dean looked down at his own abdomen, distant from the pain as he watched Alastair’s demonstration of the correct form being cut over his sternum. Dean took note so that he could carve the next searing bite of the blade into the soul on the rack. So that next time it wouldn’t be his flesh on the floor.

Before letting him return to his work, Alastair closed in from behind, reaching his arm around. He smeared his hand over the blood that spilled down Dean’s belly, slickening his fingers with crimson.

The blood had already flowed around the curves of Dean’s thighs by the time Alastair’s sticky fingers grasped the base of Dean’s cock. There was no need to work him up. He was already hard. Dean liked to think it was Alastair’s doing. 

His moan was unashamed. He knew Alastair liked to hear him, whether it was groans of pleasure or broken, animalistic cries.

The thrust of his hips was eager as he pushed into Alastair’s encircling fingers. Alastair let Dean do the work, sliding his straining cock against the demon’s calloused palm.

At the edge of his perception, demons laughed. ‘Hunter whore,’ murmured taunting on their lips.

Didn’t matter. He hadn’t screwed up enough for Alastair to throw him to the wolves – to turn his back on him.

If he could do this well enough, he’d skate by for one more day so he fucked into Alastair’s blood slick hand for all he was worth.

There’d be no release until Alastair allowed it. This could go on for days, sometimes it did, with his skin becoming raw and the need only growing stronger with every second. But today, Alastair let him come while the coiled heat in him still qualified as pleasure.

His muscles were still clenched, his eyes unfocused as Alastair pressed the blade back into Dean’s hand, folding his fingers around it. Alastair remained tight to Dean’s back with his cock rigid, but patient against Dean’s thigh.

“Again.”

One word brimming with more patience than Dean’s own father had ever possessed. It was a whispered command that rang louder in Dean’s being than the desperate soul screeching on the rack before him.

Some days, Dean could acknowledge that he was little more than a curiosity. Maybe a toy, or a pet at best. Half the demons watching were passing bets on how long it would be before what remained of Dean sloughed off to leave a new demon in its wake. 

Alastair liked to talk about how beautifully Dean had broken, and he had already broken. He’d shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces that had once added up to something, but not much. No great loss.

But there was still something there to cling to. There was still Sam, alive. There was still not wanting to be the thing that had destroyed his family. There was still that now meek part of him that wanted to screw it to Alastair just for the hell of it.

More than anything, there was uncertainty.

Dean didn’t know whether he wanted to keep grasping at shifting sands of memory or drop to his knees here and now and beg Alastair to slice away the remains of his humanity like the tumor it had become.

He was pretty sure Alastair was biding his time waiting for that day. Maybe Dean was too.

The soul on the rack, he carved into with all the ferocity he possessed because he hated Alastair - or maybe because he didn't hate the demon enough. He lost track of the cuts, lost himself in the gore and screams until he was awoken by the fact that nothing recognizable remained in front of him. 

"See now? I knew you could do it," Alastair said against Dean's ear.

Alastair’s breath was soaked in evil and decay. Dean breathed it in, another familiar comfort.

Dean’s eyes fell closed against the formless bits that remained of the soul and the piercing eyes of those who had watched him working from just beyond the shadows. Alastair’s possessive hand ran up the inside of his thigh, claws scraping flesh before settling at the hollow of his hip.

The demon’s gaze drifted over Dean’s shoulder to the empty rack awaiting its next soul. “Do you miss it?” Alastair asked, his tone almost as curious as it was playful. "The next one could be you."

The thought didn't scare Dean. Only the fact that part of him wanted it terrified him. But he wanted this more, being able to do something active to please Alastair, not just serving as the sacrificial lamb.

"They're all watching," Alastair said.

As Dean curled into Alastair's hold, he knew the audience of demons, and other souls who were half way there, were admiring Alastair for having tamed the hunter. They could mock Dean all they wanted, but he’d been taken out of the lineup.

"Pick one," Alastair said with a motion towards the gawkers. "Any you like."

The snickers and slurred whispers, just loud enough to be audible, cut to silence. Those in the front of the crowd, looked around uneasily, those in the back began to sneak away.

Alastair raised a hand in warning, freezing everyone in place. There was no need for additional threats. They all knew what Alastair was capable of.

A smile coolly curled up the corner of Dean's lips.

There was fear on their faces and it wasn’t only fear of Alastair. Dean was the one wielding the razor now and it would be him who put the next one on the rack.

Sleep would come easy tonight.


End file.
